Dockable planets

[Prophet]

I felt that not being able to land on a planet was a little restrictive in such an expansive game so I found a sort of loop-hole.

By creating a normal station and setting the images to:
<Image variant>
biosphere planet 1
biosphere planet 2
etc.

and the wreck is a volcanic planet image
I also made the explosion as big as possible.
I am planing on make some custom armor, something along the lines of "Tectonic Plate, Mass 5000 tons HP 5000" to keep the player from trying to take them.

Would anyone be interested in helping me with the Dockscreens? I have c&p'd a number of others to give a commodities exchange, dock services, etc. but I cannot currently code my own. I'm trying to show that the planet is a thriving metropolis and would like to create more 'places' to visit while docked.

[Mutos]

Hi Prophet, hi all,


That's a nice idea. I've already done some things along these lines for my "Hoshikaze 2250 - Stars of Call" Adventure Mod, but it' not completely satisfying. Your way of doing this seems good and I would like to see what it can do. But now I must get to work and quit the keyboard, but we'll surely talk about this later.

[digdug]

cool, but can you use a station like that in the system so that it will have the orbit line like a normal planet when the system in generated ?

[schilcote]

Ever heared of my (orginally Bobby's) Dockable Planets mod? The planets are still planets, but you can dock with them. It's buggy, but I'm still working on it.

[Prophet]

cool, but can you use a station like that in the system so that it will have the orbit line like a normal planet when the system in generated ?

not exactly, the image of a planet (the station) will show in the player screen but not in the map. It is treated like a normal station if it is generated randomly and will not have an orbital track or a map icon. I have it placed in a system directly overtop of a biosphere planet to overcome this hurdle.

That's a nice idea. I've already done some things along these lines for my "Hoshikaze 2250 - Stars of Call" Adventure Mod,

I have your mod Mutos, it's where I got the idea for mine. I have no idea how yours works so I tried to find a solution that was easier for me to work with as my knowledge is very limited.

Ever heared of my (orginally Bobby's) Dockable Planets mod? The planets are still planets, but you can dock with them. It's buggy, but I'm still working on it.

I read about this and it seemed really neat. again, i have no idea how to code it. I was thinking of a way to reverse this and have it so that if a player flew out of the system (say 1500 ls) it would trigger a warp to another system. Is your mod available for download? I would be interested in looking at it.[/quote]

[Mutos]

Hi Prophet,


What I do is making a "Dock" station that sits atop of the standard planet, just like you. But I didn't think to give it the same image as the planet itself. My docks have transparent 1x1 images. So they're invisible and are just used to displaya docking marker at the same position as the planet. It works very good, except that when you select it, the marker indeed appears empty.

It seems we've arrived to near conclusions by two different ways. The only difference is the image. Your way of giving the station and the planet the same image would solve the issue. I still see two pending points : planets with random images, where one could never synch both images, and the fact that having a station type per planet type would eat up a large amount of UNIDs.

Here is code for my own version of the station :

Code: Select all

<!-- 1x1 px image with 1x1 px transparent background
     Menus are not functionnal for now ! -->
<Image UNID="&rsOrbit;"	bitmap="HK-resources\HK-003-Commons\Orbit.jpg"	bitmask="HK-resources\HK-003-Commons\OrbitMask.bmp" backColor="0x00000000"/>

<!-- Docking station, here the XS version for asteroids -->
<StationType UNID="&stMarkerDockXS;"
	name=			"(parkingOrbit)"
	backgroundObject=	"true"
	sovereign=			"&svIndependent;"
	immutable=		"true"
	attributes=			"hk2250,knownOnStartup,parkingOrbit"
	dockingPorts=		"8"
	dockScreen=		"Main"
>
	<ImageVariants>
		<Image			imageID="&rsOrbit;" imageX="0" ImageY="0"  imageWidth="1" imageHeight="1" />
	</ImageVariants>

	<Events>
		<OnCreate>
			(objSetKnown gSource)
		</OnCreate>
	</Events>

	<DockScreens>
		<Main
			name=			"=(objGetName gSource)"
			backgroundID=	"&rsStandardOrbit;"
		>
			<Panes>
				<Default>
					<Initialize>
						(scrSetDesc gScreen
							(cat "You are in standard orbit, high above " (objGetName gSource))
						)
					</Initialize>
					<Actions>
						<Action name="Land" key="L">
							<Exit/>
						</Action>
						<Action name="sHuttle" key="H">
							<Exit/>
						</Action>
							<Action name="Exit Orbit" cancel="1" key="E">
							<Exit/>
						</Action>
					</Actions>
				</Default>
			</Panes>
		</Main>
	</DockScreens>

	<DockingPorts>
		<Port x="0"		y="120" />
		<Port x="0"		y="-120" />
		<Port x="90"	y="90" />
		<Port x="90"	y="-90" />
		<Port x="120"	y="0" />
		<Port x="-120"	y="0" />
		<Port x="-90"	y="90" />
		<Port x="-90"	y="-90" />
	</DockingPorts>
</StationType>

I have a number of such Docks with varying dimensions, adapted for all plaetary size from asteroid to gaz giants. Then I use them in the following way, atop a standard planet :

Code: Select all

<!-- Venus -->
<Group distance="360" scale="light-second">
	<Station type="&stGreenhousePlanet;" name="Venus" showOrbit="true" />
	<Station type="&stMarkerDockS;" name="Venus" />
</Group>

[Prophet]

I may have solved one of our problems.

In a station you can add the scale="world" attribute which will show the station image on the map and also 'showorbit="true" ' in the system.
Now the station itself has a map image and an orbit showing aswell. This does not seem to affect player interaction and all the dockscreens show up normally.

These stations are really only useful for custom topogrophies though as they do not have any labels for the random placement of other objects. (I don't think) also, having these stations in regular random placement could create systems with far too many planets.

[Mutos]

Hi Prophet,


I'll remember that, this could lead to a better coding of my system, which are all custom-built and fixed-form. Thanks, you opened a damn good path !